What matters is HOW YOU PLAY IT!

Last Thursday there was another picking party at the house of some friends. Now, I especially enjoy playing music with folks, so I went over to their house all ready to go. In contrast to the regular crowd, the pickers seemed sparse at first. Cousin David the banjo player would have been there, but he…

This Is How It’s Supposed To Happen!

Sandy, who is about my age (the best age!) has been taking fiddle lessons from me now for two or three months. Maybe even four. She's never played an instrument before. Knowing that if she invested a lot of money in an instrument, she'd feel obliged to stick with it, she bought a good new…

Typical

Our friend Jinx Miller sent us some old photos recently and this one made us laugh. It was a very typical pose for Casey and Murphy back in the day (circa 1980). L-R: Tuck Tucker, Red Henry, Connie Rose, Murphy Henry, Casey Henry, George Custer

Minor Chords

One of my students and I just had a very productive conversation about minor chords. Minor chords can be hard, but they're really neat once you get the hang of them. As I was telling my student, there is a simple way to get to the minor chord from each chord shape (bar, F shape,…

Gigging with Cousin David

Murphy and I just played a gig---a music job---with our Cousin David. Now, gigs with David always involve some degree of unpredictability, or, if you like, Adventure. The folks involved were Murphy and myself, our friend Scott, and good old Cousin David. In this case, the Adventure didn't take long to start. It was raining,…

Practice Tip #5: Play the song 3 or 4 times in a row!

Just when I think I understand a lot about how students practice, I realize that something important has slipped by me. This week I was surprised to find out that many of my students are playing their songs through only one time. One time only. And then moving on to another song. No, no, no,…

Vamping with a capo

This week one of my students ventured out to her first public jam session. She had previously jammed only at group lessons and at the FiddleStar/Murphy Method camp that we held last month. She has been playing just about a year and went to this jam with the intention of just vamping---not taking any leads.…

Excuses Excuses

These were the excuses from two of my teenaged banjo students last week. Logan you've already met. So this is me: Okay, Logan, what are your excuses for this week? So this is Logan talking. (My responses are in parenthesis.) I had two prep sessions for the PSAT, from 6-9 in the evening. (What else?)…

Right Hand Studies

In thinking about right hand position, which I wrote about on Friday, I thought I'd dig out some pictures to show the variation in how people's right hands look. This first one should need no explanation or identification: (That's Earl!) In an ideal world, everyone's hand would look just like this. But, it's not an…

Time To Pick

Last Wednesday night I went over to pick at our friends David and Linda's house. They've started hosting some regular picking on Thursday nights, something we haven't had around this area before. The picking was good, and it brought some good points to mind: 1. When you're playing music with some folks whose music you…